Chapter 13
“Hands in the air,” the man ordered in a “got ya” voice.
As Max raised his hands, it registered with him that the guy was wearing a dark green uniform.
He wasn’t some low-life who had sneaked up on them. He must be a security guard who patrolled the grounds around the dam, and they’d shown up at the wrong time.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, his gaze swinging between them and settling on Olivia.
Instead of answering, she straightened, and her persona seemed to change. She had been upset about coming here, but now her posture subtly shifted into the public image that he’d studied when he’d first considered this assignment.
The guard’s focus was entirely on her now. “You’re… someone… Where have I seen you before?” he asked.
“On television. Or maybe in a magazine. I’m Olivia Winters.”
He continued to study her. “Yeah, the model. That’s right. What are you doing here?” he asked with considerably less hostility than he’d exhibited at first.
She kept her head up and her shoulders squared, as though she were wearing a designer gown and getting ready to step on the runway. And somehow she was exuding a charm she hadn’t bothered to use on Max or her former classmates. But apparently when she needed to, she could call on some learned behavior that she found useful.
“Did you read about the murder of Angela Dawson a couple of weeks ago?”
“Yeah. What about it?” the guard asked.
“She was my best friend in high school. Because the police weren’t making any progress on finding out who did it, I hired a private detective to help me figure out what happened to her.”
The guard said nothing, forcing Olivia to keep speaking. “The kids in my class used to hang out up here.” She stopped and swallowed. “Actually, Angela was raped up here when we were in high school.” She stopped and inclined her shoulder toward Max. “Detective Lyon wanted to see where it happened because it could be relevant.”
“She was raped here? Seriously?”
“Yes,” Olivia answered. “Otherwise we wouldn’t be here.”
Max joined the conversation. “I’m digging into the motivation of the killer. I think it has something to do with the relationships between the class members ten or eleven years ago.”
Olivia added, “So I brought him up here. I’m sorry. I know I should have gotten permission, but we thought we’d be in and out of here before anybody noticed.”
“What did you think you were going to find after so long?” the guard asked Max.
He thought about the underground room but said only, “There probably isn’t any physical evidence, but I wanted to get a handle on this hangout. It looks like the kids had free rein up here back in the day. It’s good that you’re patrolling the area now.”
“Yeah,” the guy said, and Max wondered what that meant, exactly. But he didn’t ask for clarification. Beside him, Olivia was also silent.
After long moments, the guy finally said, “Go on, before I change my mind about pressing charges.”
“Thanks,” Max said. Actually he wanted to ask a bunch of questions—starting with, how often did he patrol this area? How many guards worked here? What was the patrol route, and whom did the guy work for, exactly? But he decided not to press his luck by making the guy think twice about letting them go.
“And I hope you find out who killed your friend,” the guard said to Olivia.
“Thanks so much,” she answered.
“Yes, thanks,” Max added, thinking that being discovered could have gotten them into a hell of a mess.
They both turned and started back the way they’d come.
“Don’t run,” Max murmured.
“I’m not.”
Until they made the turn in the gravel road, Max could feel the man’s gaze on the back of his neck.
When they were out of sight, he whispered, “It was like pulling teeth to get you to say anything about this place. But then when a complete stranger confronts you, you blurt out the rape.”
She turned to him, a plea for understanding on her face. “I knew he wasn’t going to just let us go unless he knew we were on a serious mission.”
“Murder is serious.”
“I could tell from his face that it wasn’t serious enough.”
“You read people that well?”
“Sometimes.”
He couldn’t stop himself from saying, “And can you always get guys to respond like that when you turn on the charm?”
She turned to him, a challenging look in her eyes. “What’s that supposed to mean?”